Greywalker - Kat Richardson [95]
“What kind of problem did you have?” he asked.
I described the alarm’s nonfunction during Sergeyev’s visit. I had to eliminate the plausible first, before I could go leaping to the impossible.
“That’s strange. I’ll be up in about half an hour. OK?”
“Great,” I said and hung up.
I checked my messages and discovered one from Mara Danziger.
“Hmm, Harper, the problem with magic is getting worse. I’d be grateful for your help. Give me a ring.”
Curious, I called her back.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Mara, it’s Harper.”
“Harper, I’m worried. The blockage is worsening. To be shocking honest, Ben’s no help with this, nor Albert. I simply must be finding the source. And all divinations keep coming back to you.”
“Still?”
“Yes. Have you any idea why this is happening? Could it be Cameron?”
“I don’t think so. But I’ve been mixing with vampires and there’ve been a few weird things hanging around.”
“I told you they would—”
A knock on the door came a moment ahead of Quinton’s face peeking around the doorframe. I waved him in and leaned back in my chair. “Mara, I have to deal with something here, but I have to go out to the Madison Forrest House later and look at a piece of furniture. There’s something a little strange about the situation surrounding this thing.” I paused, thinking, then sat forward. “Would you be willing to come with me to Madison Forrest? We could discuss this other situation then, too.”
“Well . . . I suppose so. I’ll have Ben look after the baby for a bit. Then, what say I pick you up?”
“That’ll be fine, Mara. Come by in about an hour. OK?”
“All right. Be seeing you, then.”
Quinton had already begun poking around with his Multimeter. As soon as I was off the phone, he asked me to move and ran a check of the computer program. He looked at the video capture that should have shown Sergeyev, but didn’t.
“I’m not sure why this guy didn’t show up, but there’s nothing wrong with this system and the diagnostic says there never was,” he said, frowning at the computer screen. “You sure he was here?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“It’s a head scratcher, but the system’s working fine now.”
“OK.”
“Keep an eye on it, and let me know if it does this again. You might try it on that client of yours, because I’m not really sure what effect some people have on electronics.”
I wondered how he knew about Sergeyev. Had I mentioned him? “I’m not following you. Which client?”
“The one with the Camaro. The vampire.”
“Excuse me?” I choked.
“Don’t expect me to believe that you didn’t know,” Quinton said. “Took me a while to be sure, but you’ve been in much closer contact with the guy.”
“Why would you think Cameron was a vampire?”
“Lots of little signs. The weird eyes, the dirt in the trunk, the weird habits. The fangs. I’ve seen plenty of them around here. I steer clear of those guys. Even if they like you, you can’t really trust them. ’Course, you can’t trust most people. But drinking blood and turning on your fellow man is a bit worse than the usual sort of trust breaker.”
I blinked at him. He finished speaking and looked at me in silence a moment. Then he asked, “You do a lot of work for vampires?”
I shook my head. “This is my first.”
“Thought so. Be careful. They’re a tricky bunch. Magic kind of gives me the willies. It’s cool to watch, but it’s . . . disorienting to think about. I prefer electronics, physics, stuff I can grab on to and get a good look at myself.” He played with the probes of the meter and gave me a nervous glance. “Watch your step around this stuff, all right? I can fix a lot of things, but curses and that stuff I’m not so good with.”
I smiled a little. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good. And if you need anything, call me. I’ll be around.”
“Thanks, Quinton. I’ll do that. I have to get going, though. I have an appointment.”
“That’s OK. But hey, don’t get killed. You still owe me for the car,” he added with a forced grin. He packed up his things and took off.
I locked up and walked down to meet Mara.
We drove east toward Lake Washington and found the Madison Forrest House Museum. We pulled into a graveled lot nearby.